Summer Hack 2017 is done and dusted!

We have written a brief overview of the team projects to keep you amused until next years’s awesome Summer Hack.

Overview

We are excited to announce that we are running Summer Hack again this year — a week-long team programming competition for young people of secondary school age.

The Summer Hack will take place from every day 10:00 am to 4:00 pm, August 7th–11th 2017 at CodeBase Events Space, 38 Castle Terrace, Edinburgh EH3 9SJ. Details of the schedule are shown below.

We still have a limited number of places, so if you want to be involved, sign up now!

  • What is involved? You will be working in a small team, working together on a small project.
  • Will there be prizes? Yes. At the end of the week, each team will give a demo of their project, and prizes will be awarded in various categories.
  • Do you need to bring a laptop? Not necessarily — we can provide one.
  • What about food? We will provide snacks but you will need to bring your own lunch.

To get more of an idea of what will happen, check out this video of highlights from last year’s Summer Hack, kindly produced for us by the awesome team at Product Forge:

Schedule

Monday

Time Activity
10:00 Welcome
  • Aims of the week
  • Expectations / rules for the week
  • How to win prizes
10:15 Team Formation
11:15 Snack
11:30 Who knows what?
12:30 Lunch (bring your own)
13:00 Challenges
14:00 Teams start planning their projects (incorporating snack break)
15:30 Review and Wrap-up
16:00 End of the day

Tuesday

Time Activity
10:00 Prompt Start!
10:15 Daily update
  • Aims of the day
  • Finalise project plans
10:45 Hacking
11:15 Snack
12:00 Hacking
12:30 Lunch (bring your own)
13:00 Quickfire team updates
13:30 Hacking
14:30 Afternoon snack
14:45 Hacking
15:30 Last word for the day
  • Tomorrow is your best opportunity to code your solution
  • Come prepared to focus
16:00 End of the day

Wednesday

Time Activity
10:00 Prompt Start!
10:15 Daily update
  • Put aside all thoughts of changing what you want to do and focus on coding!
  • Work well with each other
10:45 Hacking
11:15 Snack
12:00 Hacking
12:30 Lunch (bring your own)
13:00 Quickfire team updates
13:30 Hacking
14:30 Afternoon snack
14:45 Hacking
15:30 Last word for the day
  • Tonight is a good time to start to think about your presentations
16:00 End of the day

Thursday

Time Activity
10:00 Prompt Start!
10:15 Daily update
  • Keep coding whilst preparing for a presentation
10:45 Hacking
11:15 Snack
12:00 Hacking
12:30 Lunch (bring your own)
13:00 Quickfire team updates
13:30 Slots for each team to individually rehearse their presentation in the Boardroom with volunteer feedback and guidance
14:30 Afternoon snack
14:45 Hacking
15:30 Last word for the day
16:00 End of the day

Friday

Time Activity
10:00 Prompt Start!
10:15 Daily update
  • Tie up loose ends and prepare for final presentations after lunch
10:45 Hacking
11:15 Snack
12:00 Hacking
12:30 Lunch (bring your own)
13:00 Presentations
  • Each team presents the work they have done during the week
14:00 Judging / extended snack period
15:00 Awards
15:45–16:00 Thanks and tidy-up


Challenges

Active Coding

Design a project with a device (e.g., Raspberry Pi, Arduino, BBC micro:bit) to help younger children learn programming.

Chatbot Challenge

Make a chatbot. Talk to a computer, have it say silly things back. You could use the NLTK chat library as a starting point.

The Answer

Create a programme that will ask people questions (and then do something fun with their answers, such as generative art with Nodebox).

Recycle Me!

Build a web site or mobile app that encourages people to recycle more stuff for City of Edinburgh Council.

True Grit

Build a game that makes it fun to find grit bins in Edinburgh, and to check that the location on the Council map is their real location. (You can also use OpenStreetMap to record grit bin locations.)

Website Upgrade

Work on the Prewired website and learn about Markdown, CSS, Jekyll, Jekyll Themes, Git and GitHub Pages.

Give Me Shelter

Create an interactive digital adventure about what it’s like to be homeless.

Library Games

Create a game that takes place in a library.

Swap your stuff!

Create an app or website where you can offer clothes, toys, gadgets in exchange for things that other people want to get rid of. (Or donate them to Shelter.)

Digital Play

Build a game that is suitable for very young children. Take into account recent research from the University of Edinburgh about Exploring play and creativity in pre-schoolers’ use of apps.

Lego robots!

Can your robot do this?

Wildcard *

Anything else you want to build! –>